Ross Mills

A shiny yellow classic car with chrome wheels in a showroom.

Chevrolet Sedan Delivery 1934 images

The 1934 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery was never built to turn heads — it was a stripped-down commercial hauler riding on Chevrolet’s Master DA commercial chassis, with a 206 cubic-inch stove bolt six doing all the work. Decades of hard use as a merchant’s delivery van meant most of these were driven into the ground and scrapped, not preserved. Only a handful surface on the collector market today, making surviving examples genuinely rare pre-war finds. Here’s why this unglamorous workhorse deserves a spot in any serious pre-war Chevy collection.

Ford Thunderbird 1962 Images

by Ross Mills

Ford’s 1962 Thunderbird Sports Roadster used a clever fiberglass tonneau cover to disguise a genuine four-seat convertible as a two-seat sports car, right down to spoke wire wheels and special fender badges. Check the right option box and Ford would add Tri-Power carburetion to the 390 V8, bumping output to a genuine 340 horsepower — but only 120 buyers ever did, out of 1,427 Sports Roadsters built that year. Historians estimate barely 40 of those M-code cars survive today, making this one of the rarest factory options of the entire early Thunderbird generation.

Chevy Big-Blocks—the Mark IV and a New 427

by Ross Mills

Chevrolet’s Mark IV big-block started as a truck engine and ended up terrorizing quarter-miles from Camaros to full-size Biscaynes. The 396, the 402 sold under a different name, and the legendary 427 all trace back to the same basic architecture. Read on to see how one engine family covered such wildly different cars.

Shiny blue classic car with white racing stripes in a garage.

The 1968 Chevelle SS 396 That Proved the TH400 Automatic Wasn’t a Consolation Prize

by Ross Mills

A numbers-matching 1968 Chevelle SS 396 with its original 396 CID big block and TH400 automatic doesn’t need much of a caption to earn attention — Gateway Classic Cars gave this one eight. 1968 was the year Chevrolet spun the SS 396 into its own distinct series, moving over 67,000 units across the Sport Coupe, convertible, and El Camino body styles. Here’s what made the drivetrain combination in these photos worth a second look.

Ford Mustang 1969-`70-The Boss 429

by Ross Mills

Ford built an engine so large it needed a redesigned front end just to fit under a Mustang’s hood — and only built it at all because of a NASCAR homologation rule. Fewer than 1,400 Boss 429s were ever made, each one tagged with a sequential Kar Kraft door number. Read on for how a 375-horsepower rating hid an engine capable of 600-plus, and why this remains one of the most valuable Mustangs Ford ever sold.

Classic maroon and silver 1980s car in a garage.

Chevrolet El Camino 1987 images

by Ross Mills

Chevrolet built its last El Camino in 1987, and by most counts it was also the rarest single year of the model’s entire run — barely over 13,000 built, including fewer than 900 SS models. Buyers were down to just two engines, a base V6 or an optional 305 cubic-inch V8, with the manual transmission long gone from the order sheet. There was never an official send-off; production simply wound down quietly at Chevrolet’s Mexico plant. Here’s the real story behind the final year, and why the persistent “1988 El Camino” rumor doesn’t quite hold up.

Classic maroon muscle car with distinctive hood scoops.

Oldsmobile Cutlass 1972 images

by Ross Mills

1972 was a landmark year for the Oldsmobile Cutlass for two very different reasons: it was the last year you could order a standard Cutlass convertible until the body style returned in 1990, and it was the year a Hurst-badged Cutlass became the only Indy 500 pace car ever sponsored by a parts supplier instead of an automaker. Here is the strange chain of events, starting with a wrecked pace car the year before, that made it happen.

Ford Galaxie 1964 to 1968

by Ross Mills

This pale yellow 1964 Ford Galaxie, with its red vinyl bucket seats and chrome-heavy face, looks like exactly the comfortable family hardtop Ford sold it as. But the same model line quietly carried the 427 and, briefly, the 600-plus-horsepower SOHC ‘Cammer’ that Ford never dared sell to the public. Read on for how the Galaxie evolved year by year into the 7 Liter, and why a small number of these ordinary-looking cars may be hiding something extraordinary.

Ford Motors Flathead V8 engine 1932 to 1953 Part two

by Ross Mills

The same Ford flathead V8 sits under the hood of both a glossy black ’32 Phaeton and a working maroon late-1930s pickup, wearing the same chrome V8 badge either way. Its single-piece ‘monoblock’ casting solved a flaw that plagued earlier V8 engines, and it became the foundation of the postwar hot rod movement. Read on for how lake pipes, relieving, and Ardun heads turned a Depression-era workhorse engine into a performance icon.

Classic light blue muscle car in a showroom.

Dodge Charger 1966 images

by Ross Mills

Dodge built the very first Charger in 1966 with NASCAR success as the top priority, wrapping a Coronet-based platform in a swoopy fastback body with hidden headlamps and four bucket seats. Buyers responded in a big way — 37,344 were sold in that first year alone, though only 468 of them left the factory with the fearsome 426 Hemi under the hood. That scarcity is exactly why genuine numbers-matching ’66 Hemi Chargers are among the most sought-after early muscle cars on the market today.

Classic red muscle car parked outside a building.

Chevrolet Custom Camaro 1973 images

by Ross Mills

This 1973 Chevrolet Camaro left the factory rated nowhere close to what it’s packing now – a stroked 468-cubic-inch V8 backed by a heavy-duty Turbo 400 automatic, built for both street and track duty. Chevrolet’s actual 1973 lineup topped out at a 245-horsepower Z28, the same year the Super Sport package quietly disappeared for good. Understanding what Chevrolet really built in 1973 makes this stroker build’s numbers land that much harder.

Shelby GT 350 Mustang 1966-images

by Ross Mills

Hertz rented race cars in 1966 — literally. Shelby built roughly 1,000 GT350H Mustangs for the ‘Rent-A-Racer’ program, and the black-and-gold color combo everyone remembers almost didn’t happen. Here’s the real story behind Shelby’s strangest, most famous customer.

Chevy Big Block series- the 427 variations

by Ross Mills

In 1969 Chevrolet let a handful of buyers order an all-aluminum, race-bred 427 that needed fuel no gas station actually sold — and it nearly doubled the price of the car it went into. Only 69 Camaros and 2 Corvettes ever left the factory with the ZL1 option. Read on for the dyno numbers, the drag strip runs that outran them, and why this engine’s window of availability was so brief.

Red classic muscle car with black racing stripes.

Chevrolet Camaro 1970 images

by Ross Mills

This 1970 Camaro looks like a factory small-block cruiser until you notice what’s actually under the hood. A modern Ram Jet 350 crate engine and a Tremec five-speed have replaced whatever left the assembly line, turning a classic second-gen body into a genuine driver. Gateway Classic Cars built it to be enjoyed, not just admired. Is that a compromise, or the smarter way to own a muscle car icon?

Classic red 1968 Ford Mustang with white roof in pristine condition.

Ford Mustang 1967 images

by Ross Mills

This 1967 Mustang runs Ford’s dependable 289 V8 backed by the factory three-speed manual, a combination often overlooked next to big-block legends. But the 289’s blend of power, reliability, and that direct three-speed feel made 1967 one of Mustang’s most important model years. Gateway Classic Cars is sharing the images here. Underrated classic, or just a base-model Mustang?

Posts By: Ross Mills